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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25241617">Better</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepsWithCoyotes/pseuds/SleepsWithCoyotes'>SleepsWithCoyotes</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Shadow Hearts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Archival Fic, Cock Rings, Community: kink_bingo, Don't copy to another site, F/M, Non-Penetrative Sex Toys, Post-good ending</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 04:14:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,416</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25241617</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepsWithCoyotes/pseuds/SleepsWithCoyotes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He knew something was up when he walked into the room.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alice Elliot/Yuri Hyuga</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Better</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Back to working on moving stuff over from the spambot...this one's from my 2009 blackout kink_bingo card.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He knew something was up when he walked into their hotel room and found Margarete waiting for him--or not so much waiting for him as smirking at him, and Alice blushing from the tips of her ears to the collar of her dress. Ordinarily he'd have swaggered in anyway, but he'd learned a thing or two about women after traveling with a couple of them, and he knew without a doubt that coming in to find one smirking and one blushing meant that either your masculinity was in question or you were about to get lucky.</p>
<p>"Look," he said, just to be on the safe side, "whatever it is, I didn't do it."</p>
<p>"Maybe not yet," Margarete said as she rose, collecting her coat on the way to the door. "Anyway, I'll be in Zurich for the next few days. Call me," she added, grinning over her shoulder at Alice, "we'll go shopping!"</p>
<p>Why that seemed to make Alice's blush even worse, Yuri couldn't say, but he figured she'd tell him when she was ready. Alice could be real shy about things Yuri didn't get at all, like closing the bathroom door or even sharing a bathtub, but she didn't keep secrets from him, not anymore. All he had to do was wait her out.</p>
<p>And anyway, whatever she was hiding behind her back wasn't going to stay hidden for long.</p>
<p>"I, um...Yuri, er...did you find...Keith?" she asked in a rush, leaning back a bit as he wandered over, like she was afraid he was going to peer over her shoulder.</p>
<p>"Uh, yeah," he said, trying not to grin. "I don't know why those two are traveling together, but if he can put up with Margarete, more power to him. So, what did she want?"</p>
<p>"N-nothing!" she squeaked, giving him an embarrassed grimace probably meant to be ingenuous...and bolted for the bathroom before he could stop her, or get a good look at what she had clutched in her fist.</p>
<p>Covering his mouth with his hand, he snickered as quietly as possible, shoulders shaking silently until he got it under control. Whatever was going on, if Margarete was involved and Alice was acting this shy about it, it had to be good.</p>
<p>When Alice crept back out into the main room a little while later, her hands were empty and her face was damp from repeated splashings, though high spots of color still remained in her cheeks. He was pretty sure that even if he searched the bathroom from top to bottom, he wouldn't find whatever she'd hidden, though. Alice <i>always</i> welcomed him back with at least a kiss to the cheek--more if he reeled her back in, giggling and smiling and sweet--but this time she evaded his hands after a quick peck, skittish as a new foal.</p>
<p>He sort of wanted to ask if she knew just how many grafted hunting instincts she was tripping, but something in the brightness of her eyes told him she knew just fine, thank you. That was his Alice. Even his monsters didn't scare her.</p>
<p>So he let her play. Chased her step by step from one end of the honeymoon suite to the other by slow degrees, getting close enough to rub his face against the cool silk of her hair or drag his fingertips down her back before she'd find some excuse to sidle away, but never so far as to let him think that she didn't want him to follow. He even raised the stakes, suggested dining out, just to see whether she'd ditch whatever she was hiding before they went. Instead he watched her touch the pocket of her skirt half a hundred times over the next hour, like she was terrified she'd lose whatever-it-was or that it'd fall out of her pocket where everyone could see.</p>
<p>He backed off after that--teasing her was one thing, but he didn't like seeing her actually nervous--and then...then she started chasing <i>him</i>.</p>
<p>The monsters inside thought it was pretty funny that something so tiny was treating them like prey, and he was pretty sure from a surge of fond indulgence that wasn't his own that a few of them thought it was puppy-play, a cub learning to hunt. Yuri knew better, and coming from Alice, he liked it just fine.</p>
<p>He let her catch him right around bedtime, stripping down while she was in the bathroom and flopping down onto the bed without bothering to pull back the covers. She'd blush, but it wouldn't stop her, not anymore. Folding his hands behind his head, Yuri settled down with a huge grin to wait.</p>
<p>That was another thing he'd learned about girls: they could spend <i>hours</i> in the bathroom, for reasons he couldn't comprehend.  There just wasn't that much to do in there. And also that Alice would hit him if she caught him lurking outside the door, trying to figure out what the hell was taking so long.</p>
<p>She came out in her robe, not her nightgown, her hair brushed to a shine, skin pink and freshly-scrubbed. It didn't matter how often he told her he liked her taste, her scent, just the way it was.  She'd blush and go take a bath, and never mind that he was just going to dirty her up again, with great pleasure. And then she'd go take <i>another</i> bath unless he tired her out enough to fall asleep with his scent still on her, every instinct of every monster in the room purring with satisfaction.</p>
<p>Her cheeks got even pinker when she saw him, but she came right over and sat down at the edge of the bed, right beside his hip. Something about the way she worried her lower lip with her teeth, her half-guilty little smile, made him wait for her, wondering what was up. Obviously she was ready to spring her surprise on him, but what was it and why did she look so uncertain?</p>
<p>"Yuri," she began hesitantly, "do you think...I mean, Margarete...um, I was asking her about...oh, God."</p>
<p>Yuri sat up slowly, still leaning back on his hands, and tried to look encouraging. He didn't know which worried him more: Alice swearing or the fact that she'd been discussing what they did in bed with the spy.</p>
<p>"So...she, um...brought me this."</p>
<p>Alice's hand dipped into the pocket of her robe, and what she brought out left Yuri staring: a weird collection of leather straps and snaps that would maybe have looked like a harness-maker's joke if you didn't already know what it was.</p>
<p>"It's a...erm...."</p>
<p>A cock ring, yeah--he knew what it <i>was</i>. He just wasn't sure what she'd wanted it for. He'd thought he'd left her pretty satisfied, but maybe he'd been wrong. With the girls he'd been with before, he'd never stuck around long enough to really care.</p>
<p>"It's," Alice soldiered on bravely, "it's supposed to make things...better."</p>
<p><i>Better</i>? Oh, Christ. Had he been too impatient, was that it? Had he been hurting her, and she just hadn't said? He knew he wasn't all <i>there</i> sometimes, but... <i>Jesus</i>. "Better?" he echoed, bracing himself to hear the worst of it.</p>
<p>Alice nodded, peering up at him through her lashes as her face flamed brighter than before. "For you."</p>
<p>Oh, God, he was an idiot, but he got it now, at least. He'd managed to shock her a time or two since they began sharing a bed, and though she'd never say as much aloud, he knew she worried she wasn't adventurous enough for him, too shy for months even after they shared a <i>name</i> to not dive under the covers if the sun was still up. She'd probably asked Margarete for tips on how to drive her man wild, and Margarete had come up with...this.</p>
<p>Yuri looked down at the thing in Alice's hand, looked up at her again with a widening grin. "So...you want to try it?"</p>
<p>That got him another nod and a bashful smile he had to kiss her for, it looked so good on her.</p>
<p>When she pushed him back down, he went, letting her call the shots this time. He never got tired of watching her--sleeping, reading a book, staring out the window on a train or laughing with one of their friends--but it was different watching her come to <i>him</i>, wanting him. Even before she touched him, he was already half-hard, and it took everything he had to just lie there and take it as she skated her fingers down the length of him.</p>
<p>"Hm. You'll tell me if this doesn't feel good," she said, "right?"</p>
<p>"Baby, the day your hands don't feel good on me, I'm probably dead," he groaned, smirking when he heard her giggle.</p>
<p>"Yuri! I didn't mean <i>this</i>." She was stroking him now, her small hand curled around him, never as firm as his own grip would have been, but she didn't have his strength, either. God, he wanted to touch her. Wanted her to keep touching <i>him</i> as she pulled her hand away to fumble uncertainly at the crazy tangle of leather she'd been hiding from him all day. All <i>day</i>.</p>
<p>She'd been carrying a cock ring around Zurich with him all evening, and he hadn't even known.</p>
<p>"You'd better get that on me quick," he muttered, and added at her raised brow, "I just remembered dinner."</p>
<p>Grinning now, she ducked her head and reached for him again, and wow, he must've gotten desensitized or something, because he'd forgotten the way leather could feel against bare skin. Or maybe it was just that he didn't usually have leather wrapped around him down <i>there</i>.</p>
<p>It was trial and error on Alice's part, and fuck, even that got him harder than he'd thought possible, her game willingness to try twice as sexy as all the experience in the world. Anything that kept her hands on him was good, but her touch this time seemed different, curious and sweet, without the frantic need to get him off before he distracted her again.</p>
<p>She figured it out at last, the strap that went over his cock and under his balls, the sort of 'Y'-shaped bit that slid between them and ran down the middle of his sac, separating his testicles. Tight, but not too tight. It made his balls feel heavy and full, drawn away from his body like the constant clasp of a firm, steady hand, and already his dick felt like it was going to explode.</p>
<p>"Oh," Alice murmured, staring at him with wide, avid eyes, admiring her handiwork. "You...are you sure it's not uncomfortable?"</p>
<p>"Nuh," he said through gritted teeth and a grin, sitting up on his elbows so he could watch her. "It's fine, baby. Just, uh...."</p>
<p>"Hn?"</p>
<p>"Touch me," he begged, then growled when she did, her fingers sliding over every inch of him. He felt <i>huge</i>, her touch magnified by the sensitivity of his flesh, and he reached up to hook his fingers under the edge of the headboard to keep from dragging her down on top of him. "God, Alice... <i>please</i>."</p>
<p>She took pity on him then, bent to lick away the fluid already beading at his tip. She still had her hair up in its pins, and he had a perfect view as she opened her mouth, wrapped her lips around him, and took him in. He nearly arched up off the bed, catching himself before he could choke her, but he coiled tight as a spring as one of her hands came up to cup his balls, thumb stroking their rounded tightness. Forget that whole delayed orgasm business. He was going to come <i>now</i>, ring or no ring, just from watching her play with him around the harness she'd put on him.</p>
<p>And then she was sitting up, ignoring his wordless, pleading groan as she slipped out of her robe and let it drop to the floor. God, she was beautiful, and she was...she was climbing onto the bed, straddling his hips with a fading blush and reaching down to guide him inside her. He clenched his hands hard enough the solid old headboard creaked in warning as she slid down onto him, not stopping until she rested flush against him. More aware of the harness than ever, he let out a growling, thrumming croon--Nox's voice, <i>shit</i>--as she began to move, but she just purred back at him as best she could. Well, hell. If she didn't mind, he didn't either.</p>
<p>He kept himself human for her, though, because Nox was weird and the Dark fusion's cock was weirder, and he did not--<i>hn</i>--want to find out what this harness felt like on <i>that</i>.</p>
<p>Except that he'd do it anyway if Alice wanted him to.</p>
<p>She'd lost her shyness now, and he couldn't take his eyes off her, watching her rock above him, the sway of her small, perfect breasts, the way her eyes went half-lidded and her lips parted soundlessly the closer she got. He wasn't actually sure he <i>could</i> come with the straps snugged tight around his dick, but he sort of didn't care; he wouldn't mind watching her work herself into exhaustion, and the only hand touching those snaps was going to be hers. He'd wait. Whatever made her happy.</p>
<p>He should have known Alice wouldn't leave him hanging. She was right there on the edge, he could tell by the way she tightened up around him, all but grinding down into his lap, and then she was reaching down, fumbling blindly at the base of his cock. The way she suddenly clamped tight around him coupled with the sudden release of pressure around his dick was dizzying, and he came with a shout, feeling like his orgasm was being squeezed from him through the still-tight grip of the straps caging his balls. He was half afraid he was going to buck her right off him, but she rode him out, panting and grinning and <i>proud</i> of herself, damn it. He needed to kiss her for that too.</p>
<p>It wasn't until long after he'd caught his breath, freed of the last of the straps and with an armful of sleepy Alice, that the other thing Margarete had said came floating up out of memory.</p>
<p>"Uh, Alice?"</p>
<p>"Mm?"</p>
<p>"What did Margarete mean when she said you two could go shopping?"</p>
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